Ben Butler-cole
Director Of Engineering at Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science
United Kingdom
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolBen Butler-cole is a seasoned engineering leader with 16 years of experience building and operating cloud-native database services, currently serving as Director of Engineering at the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science in the UK. He previously built and led Neo4j's DBaaS team, Neo4j Aura, and has deep hands-on expertise in graph databases, distributed systems, and DevOps. His open-source contributions to Neo4j projects include practical improvements to Docker images and core database tooling—work that touches deployment, backup/restore behavior, and operational robustness. Ben blends technical ownership with team leadership, having progressed from developer to tech lead and engineering head across ThoughtWorks and Neo4j. He holds a strong scientific foundation with degrees from Cambridge and Oxford in natural sciences and molecular biology, which informs a methodical, data-driven approach to engineering. Colleagues describe him as a pragmatic problem-solver who prefers fixing real-world production pain points over theoretical complexity.
16 years of coding experience
21 years of employment as a software developer
MSc Molecular Biology, MSc Molecular Biology at University of OxfordBA Natural Sciences, BA Natural Sciences at University of Cambridge
Stackoverflow
2,041reputation
166kreached
32answers
5questions
neo4j
top-5%
Github Skills (24)
docker10
scripting10
configuration-management10
bash10
database-administration10
graph-database10
dockers10
java10
neo4j10
javas10
script10
sh10
shell10
devops10
databases9
Programming languages (16)
Github contributions (5)
neo4j/docker-neo4j
Sep 2015 - Jul 2018
Docker Images for the Neo4j Graph Database
Role in this project:
DevOps Engineer
DevOps EngineerContributions:169 commits, 22 PRs, 106 pushes in 2 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Ben contributed to the Docker images for the Neo4j Graph Database by adding and modifying shell scripts, `neo4j.sh`, used to configure and run Neo4j instances. Their work includes adding support for different Neo4j versions, setting environment variables like heap and cache memory sizes, and adjusting configurations related to authentication and webserver addresses. The user also reindented and refactored the scripts, and introduced various configurations for the application.
neo4j-graphdockerneo4j-graph-databasedatabasedocker-images
neo4j/neo4j
Sep 2013 - May 2017
Graphs for Everyone
Role in this project:Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:2 releases, 726 commits, 269 PRs in 3 years 8 months
Contributions summary:Ben contributed to the `neo4j/neo4j` repository by implementing and modifying core functionalities of the database. Their work included enhancements to the dump command, focusing on archive name calculation when a directory is provided. They also improved error handling and reporting within the neo4j-admin tool and ensured that the dump and load commands correctly respected the store lock. These changes indicate a focus on database administration and data management features.
neo4j-databasedirected-acyclic-graphnosqlgraphsdatabase
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